Bookmark Competition:
The Bookmark Committee is proud to announce the winners and awards of honorable mention for this year's School Library Month Celebration:
Division winners:
Kindergarten-Grade 1: Dana Pasquarosa, Fitzgerald Elementary School, Waltham
Grades 2-3: Alex Bensley, Bancroft Elementary School, Andover
Grades 4-6: Mathangi Srinivasan, Sherwood Middle School, Shrewsbury
Grades 7-12: Morgan Mitchell, Overlook Middle School, Ashburnham
Student winners were awarded $25 book gift certificates and 500 winning bookmarks for their school library. In addition, their school libraries were awarded prizes contributed by various vendors who support MSLMA.
The award ceremony took place at the Plympton School in Waltham, and the judging panel included Stephen Krensky, David Biedrzycki and Brian Lies, illustrators; Massachusetts State Representative Richard Ross; John Arnold, Em Claire Knowles, Edward Bertorelli and Katherine Dibble from the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners; and MSLMA President Kathy Lowe. MSLMA member librarians from sixty-four schools were entered in the contest with a total entry count of over 360 bookmark designs. The prizes that will be awarded to the winning school libraries are listed on the MSLMA website at www.mslma.org/schoollibrarymonth/06/slm06.html. All MSLMA member school libraries who participated in State House activities and the bookmark contest will also be eligible for a drawing of prizes sponsored by our kind vendors.
Letters About Literature - Center of the Book
By Sharon Shaloo, Executive Director, Center of the Book
Letters About Literature (LAL) asks students in Grades 4 through 12 to write letters to authors whose work has made a significant difference in their lives. It invites personal and reflective writing about reading, and is a wonderful complement to less formal journaling and more formal critical essays -- occupying that middle ground where kids have a chance to express how and why they have made a personal connection with a book they have read.
LAL is sponsored in Massachusetts by the Massachusetts Center for the Book, with funding from the Calderwood Writing Initiative at the Boston Athenaeum, and is a project that feeds into the national program which is run by the Library of Congress with funding from Target. National winners are brought to Washington D.C. to read their letters on the Mall during the National Book Festival. We run the program from our Boston office at Simmons College GSLIS.
This year, Commissioner of Education David Driscoll participated in our awards ceremony and said very supportive things about important other ways students demonstrate achievement besides the MCAS and spoke of support for school libraries.
LAL supports both the Massachusetts Curriculum Frameworks and national reading and writing standards (all information posted at our site www.massbook.org/ in LAL section under "lesson plans" section.)
We'll be at the MSMLA conference in October to present this program but I hope you'll plan ahead because we'll need to receive letters by December 8th of 2006 for this year's program.
